Cash in Hand

Hooda (centre) at the awards ceremony.Journalists in Haryana have always been a pampered lot but Chief Min

Hooda (centre) at the awards ceremony.

Journalists in Haryana have always been a pampered lot but Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda's recent benevolence towards a select band seems designed to consolidate a coalition of the willing behind his government. Hooda "honoured" as many as 153 "outstanding journalists", doling out cash awards ranging from Rs 21,000 to Rs 1,51,000 along with commendation certificates and shawls.

Successive state governments have awarded journalists, but the beneficiaries never exceeded a handful at a time. The sheer number of "outstanding" journalists and the magnitude of the bounty this time sent eyebrows upwards: three lifetime achievement awards of Rs 1.51 lakh, two Rs 1 lakh state-level commemorative awards-one of them in the memory of Hooda's cousin Rajindra Hooda-12 state-level awards of Rs 51,000 each and 120 district-level awards each carrying a cash prize of Rs 21,000. The prize-winning journalists were decided by a committee from applications received in each category. The 16 special encouragement awards, each carrying a cash award of Rs 41,000 that the government additionally gave away, were simply decided by the government. "There hasn't been a chief minister as generous as him," remarked a waiting journalist.

Another 136 awards were given to journalists in various other categories.

The honoured journalists belong to all ranks-editors and bureau chiefs to stringers-and represent almost every newspaper in the region, along with some regional and national channels. Lifetime achievement award winner N.S. Parwana, who got the highest Rs 1.51 lakh award, said he was proud to have been selected unanimously. He said he was "picked up as I have worked with honesty and integrity throughout my 50-year-old journalistic career. On its part, the government says that "the awards fulfill the promise of the chief minister and are as per the notified Haryana Media Awards Rules."

While the journalists have collected the booty and deposited it in banks and the government looks forward to seeing good things being written about it, public-spirited citizens are outraged. "It's a vulgar form of corruption of journalists by the government. However objective the press might be, it must never be so friendly to the government as to be rewarded by it. The sheer number of the awardees removes the last vestige of camouflage from the whole exercise," says Anupam Gupta, an outspoken high court lawyer. Pramod Kumar, director of the Institute of Development and Communication, is relatively more open to the idea. "This can be an incentive or perverse incentive. The issue that is to be seen is if it affects the objectivity of media."

It can only be hoped that the cheques will not grow into an annual objective for mediapersons instead of the objectivity they need to exercise all the time.

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